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Fourteen months after unveiling a $45.2 billion merger that would create a new Internet and cable giant, Comcast Corp. is planning to walk away from its proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said.
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The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia, is filing a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), challenging the US government's mass surveillance programs. The nonprofit will be joined in its efforts by eight other organizations and is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "Our aim in filing this suit is to end this mass surveillance program in order to protect the rights of our users around the world," said the foundation in a blog post.
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Google's Sundar Pichai has essentially confirmed reports that the company will become a wireless provider of sorts in "the coming months." During his appearance at Mobile World Congress today, Pichai acknowledged that Google is working with "existing partners" to create its own MVNO, but stopped short of confirming that Sprint and T-Mobile are those partnering networks, as has been rumored. But he did reveal that Google has been in contact with Verizon Wireless and AT&T about its plans — likely to head off any potential ugly conflict between Mountain View and the largest, most powerful providers in the United States. "Carriers in the US are what powers most of our Android phones, and that model works really well for us," he said.
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WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes.

Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core of free expression and democratic principles.”

The new rules, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the Internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for Internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.
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A Federal Communications Commission proposal to preempt state laws that harm municipal broadband projects are being made official this week, with Chairman Tom Wheeler circulating a draft decision to his fellow commissioners, The Washington Post reported today. The commissioners are expected to vote on the matter on February 26, the same day they are likely to vote for new net neutrality rules.
Municipal broadband operators in Tennessee and North Carolina petitioned the FCC to preempt state laws that prevent them from expanding to nearby communities that want Internet service. Wheeler plans to invoke the FCC's authority to remove barriers that prevent broadband investment and competition.

The legal justification will likely have to face scrutiny in court. There is also the possibility of congressional action, with Republicans trying to gut the FCC's authority and Democrats trying to overturn the state laws through legislation. But if the FCC succeeds, it could ultimately override laws in 19 states that protect private Internet providers from municipal competition.

The Federal Communications Commission is about to fundamentally change the way it oversees high-speed Internet service, proposing to regulate it as a public utility.

Chairman Tom Wheeler is reaching for a significant expansion of the agency’s authority to regulate broadband providers, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The move would fully embrace the principle known as net neutrality, and if enacted, would bring a new definition to the economics of the Internet industry: Rather than regulating broadband firms lightly, as has been its practice so far, the FCC would treat them like telecommunications companies and subject them to more intrusive regulation, especially in areas relating to how they manage traffic on their networks.
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Just when you thought the tales of Comcast's customer service couldn't get any worse... well, let's just show you this picture:

This is what appears to be an actual bill sent to a Comcast customer in Spokane, Washington. The customer's first name is "Ricardo," but it was misspelled as "Asshole."

A travel blog called BoardingArea has the story, and it appears to be genuine. Comcast confirmed to Ars that it has apologized to the customer and that the company is looking into technology solutions to prevent future problems of this nature. Comcast is also revisiting the training it provides to its representatives to make sure that customers are treated with respect, a company spokesperson told us.

After sharing of my favourite sites to stream movies online in previous article, I would like to share sites where you will be able to stream music online, download single mp3 tracks or full albums. Below are my best rated and absolutely free music sites.
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We all love movies and TV series. There are dozen of websites that advertise with a possibility to stream movies for free and without registration. But the majority of them are fake sites, created with the main goal - to earn money through advertising links. Below I've created a list of movie sites that offer real stream links where latest movies can be watched online and absolutely for free.
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The term "moon shot" ("Moon shot") originated in the USA during the space race to the moon and today is used to describe projects of great technical difficulty completed shortly. Lately the term has been on everyone's lips, especially by Google X, the advertising arm of the search company.

Well, actually his secret Google X lab.

The last time the term was used was last Friday, when the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Google was planning a study X biomedical research. The headline was "Google's New Moonshot" (or "The new release of Google to the Moon") and describes the "most ambitious and difficult science project" in the history of the company.
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday proposed changing how it measures high-speed Internet to potentially require download speeds of 10 megabits per second (Mbps) or higher for a service to qualify as broadband.

The FCC currently defines broadband, or high-speed Internet, as 4 Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload speed. The agency will seek public comment on whether those bandwidth thresholds should be increased and whether different ones should be set for wired and wireless connections.

Today, Sprint dispensed with all subtlety. Without any pretense of net neutrality whatsoever, the carrier unveiled a plan with options to pay more for unfettered access to social media and streaming music, depending on the tier.

The Virgin Mobile Custom plan, sold under Sprint’s Virgin Mobile brand, provides unlimited access to one of four social media services – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest – on top of your data plan for $12 a month. An additional $10 will net unlimited use of all four, while $5 more grants unlimited streaming from any one music app. The base plan also includes 20 minutes of talk time and 20 texts, both of which can be upgraded. Lines start at $6.98 a month, $5 extra for “unlimited” access. Plans can be adjusted on the fly, even daily if so desired.
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When the National Security Agency would like to take a look at all of the metadata of phone calls made by people using Verizon, a program revealed last summer by Edward Snowden, they must obtain approval from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (better known as the FISA Court), which typically grants such requests. VICE has obtained disclosures that reveal for the first time since this program was made public that FISA Court judges have not only owned Verizon stock in the last year, but that at least one of the judges to sign off on the NSA orders for bulk metadata collection is a proud shareholder of the company complying with these requests.

On May 28 last year, Judge James Zagel, a FISA Court member since 2008, purchased stock in Verizon. In June of this year, Zagel signed off on a government request to the FISA Court to renew the ongoing metadata collection program.

He's not the only one. We filed a request to the courts for the personal finance statements for all of the FISA Court judges. About a month ago, federal judges began turning in their disclosures, which cover the calendar year of 2013. The disclosures show that FISA Court Judge Susan Wright purchased Verizon stock valued at $15,000 or less on October 22. FISA Court Judge Dennis Saylor has owned Verizon stock, and last year collected a dividend of less than $1,000. The precise amount and value of each investment is unclear—like many government ethics disclosures, including those for federal lawmakers, investments amounts are revealed within certain ranges of value.